CNN calls for the media to boycott press briefings in Donald Trump’s White House

| 12:10 am EDT June 21, 2017
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After Donald Trump’s White House spent months playing various games with its press briefings, ranging from outright lies to selectively denying access to news outlets which accurately covered its scandals, it hit a new low this week: Sean Spicer’s briefing wasn’t allowed to be recorded by any news outlet in attendance.

That led CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta to unload on the Donald Trump administration via Twitter. But he’s since taken things even further. Appearing on-air on CNN, Acosta stated the following: “This is something that the mainstream news organizations are going to be reluctant to do: we are going to have to consider banding together and saying, you know what, we’re not going to cover your gaggle. We’re not going to cover your briefing, if you’re just going to have this press briefing going on in the briefing room without video or audio.”

This comes after the CNN correspondent had posted the following rant on Twitter: “Spicer still can’t say whether POTUS believes in climate change. At off camera no audio briefing, Spicer took a question from a Russian reporter but not from CNN. Make no mistake about what we are all witnessing. This is a WH that is stonewalling the news media. Hiding behind no camera/no audio gaggles. There is a suppression of information going on at this WH that would not be tolerated at a city council mtg or press conf with a state gov. Call me old fashioned but I think the White House of the United States of America should have the backbone to answer questions on camera.” (link)

As Jim Acosta alluded to, such a boycott would only be effective the various major competing news outlets that attend the briefings all banded together and refused to attend. But White House briefing room reporters tend to be protective of each other. So if the Trump administration tries the “no recording” stunt again, we’ll see if CNN is able to pull off a media boycott of the briefing.